If I recall correctly, I believe the missed milestone we had on a project was along the lines of user comfort. Specifically researching a material that would make the use of the prosthetic being designed comfortable enough for the user to wear hours on end through heat, cold, and sweat. This was a topic that had been discussed recently, however, as a team we did not come to a consensus about which type of fabric was to be used. At the meeting we decided to flat out admit to our mistake and made an agreement with the professor that we would meet with him after hours after putting time into research.

Although I do not yet have any industry experience as I am an undergraduate student, I did learn about Gantt charts and had to use one for my Capstone project that took place the previous two semesters. Due to COVID-19 and the lab restrictions that came with this virus, our project schedule was greatly affected, and there were many missed milestones throughout the project that we had to account for. In dealing with these missed milestones, we formed contingency plans in hopes that we could get back on track once we were permitted to go back to the lab to work on our project. Because the project was a quite complex and challenging undertaking for undergraduate students and our lab access was delayed by nearly two months time, we ended up having to modify our project entirely, which required us to eliminate some of the tedious tasks that we deemed no longer necessary to the success of the project and focus only on the most important components of the project.

This happens constantly with projects that I am in. Specifically, I'll mention my capstone project. I have limited access to the lab throughout the week, and because of this, I try to utilize my time as efficiently as possible inside of the lab. Unfortunately tests kept failing and as the deadline was approaching. I was unable to access the lab on key dates when I needed to do work. Doing this made me miss the deadline for my project according to the Gantt chart. With scheduling being tight and my growing frustration with my inability to utilize the lab to work on key aspects of my project, I "bit the bullet" and bought my own centrifuge, heated magnetic stirrer, flasks, and many other materials as working at home with the chemicals that I need would allow me to get back on track and hopefully finish this aspect and work harder to try to stay on track for the next deadline according to the Gantt chart. The lesson here is that sometimes you have to weigh the outcomes of certain sections of a project. The outcome that I weighed here was that, if I continued to try to utilize the lab at NJIT, I would not be able to complete the section of the project and end up with a poor final design. However, if I spent hundreds of dollars of my own money, there is a possibility that I would be able to complete the project in time and get back on track with the Gantt chart. 

A project I was responsible for in industry had set deadlines that were agreed upon between my team and stakeholders within the company. These stakeholders included several directors and project managers who relied on this project as a supporting tool for more efficient documentation and decision making within the company. I was tasked to lead this project with another associate, but over time communication deteriorated between myself and this associate. After many failed attempts to reach out, this caused the development process of the project to be delayed and led to missing some deadlines as outlined within the Gantt chart. In order to reconcile the situation, I gathered all stakeholders and supporting members to reassess the situation, redefine the objectives for the project and divert resources to these objectives to meet new deadlines that were agreed upon. As a result, the project was set back on track and led to substantial success for the project launch.

For my capstone project, many of the delays we ran into were communication-based. We needed to order chemicals, but since we had an external sponsor (and therefore external payment), we had to go through numerous additional steps to order the chemicals to NJIT. We also needed another professor to grant us lab access on campus, but what was ultimately a 15 minute meeting took three weeks to schedule. It was situations like these that were extremely frustrating because it felt out of our control. We tried to cope by shifting up other, later, parts of the project if we could, but it didn't change the delay caused to our main timeline. We are still in the midst of this project currently, so I don't know how things will end up. I can say we are feeling the time pressure and are putting in overtime to make up for lost time.

During my last internship, I had missed a milestone. I needed to perform model compensation on a batch of parts. Basically, when something is being additively manufactured it will not print to the exact same dimensions as it is in CAD. The part will likely warp or shrink. The position of the parts on the build plate matters, the number of parts matters, and of course the actual size of the parts matters. Therefore, by doing multiple prints of the same build, and CT scanning each part, the average model distortion for each part on the build plate is created. This can be inserted into a software that will pre-deform the part so it will print exactly how it is designed. 

However, I ran into the issue because the CT scanner was malfunctioning. At first, the team thought that it would be up and running in a week. A week passed and they said that it would require another week. At this point we got together as a group and made up a plan. Losing two/three weeks would not delay the project, but if it was any longer than that we would run into issues. Therefore, we decided to send the parts out to another lab to have them scanned. Although, this cost more money, it allowed for the project to be finished on time. The team came to the conclusion that spending more money was worth it in order to complete the project. 

Have you ever had a situation where a milestone was delayed because of something outside of your control?

One time I experienced this was during a group project where our team had a set timeline with specific milestones we needed to complete each week. We ended up missing one of our milestones because the task took longer than expected and some team members were still learning the tools needed to complete it. When we explained the delay to the professor, we were honest about the issue and showed the progress we had already made. As a team, we adjusted our schedule and redistributed some of the work so we could catch up. We also spent extra time outside of our normal meeting hours to finish the task. In the end, we were able to complete the milestone shortly after and stay on track for the rest of the project. This experience showed me how important it is to communicate clearly and be flexible when unexpected delays happen in a project.

The first example that comes to mind for a project is a group lab project. We had to meet multiple deadlines such as completing background research, preparing an experiment, collecting data, and producing a final report. Although we did not refer to this process as a Gantt Chart at the time we still followed a similar process because every action was contingent upon the completion of the prior action.
When my group fell behind a specific timeline related to the preparation of part of the experimental setup due to underestimating the amount of time required to calibrate equipment, we met with the professor and provided an explanation of the issue along with a representation of which portion of the project resulted in the delay. Rather than simply stating that we were late for a deadline, we developed a plan to get back on track by creating new task assignments. While some team members continued to work on data analysis and developing a report outline, other team members focused on completing the remainder of the experimental setup.
As a result of this experience I learned why Gantt Charts are helpful. In addition to assisting with scheduling, they assist in identifying how a single delay will impact the remainder of the project and provide direction for making adjustments to the original plan.

Do you believe that including additional time in project timelines for potential delays or issues, provides a benefit for project team or does it create a sense of complacency for some individuals and encourage them to put off work until closer to the deadline?